May 27, 2015

Castle Fraser, outside of Aberdeen, has no connection with Jamie Fraser of Outlander fame, largely because he is fictional. Castle Fraser is enormous (as castles are), and many of the rooms were designed in that Victorian style with busy wallpaper and carpets and bird plumes atop bed posts. (Tom and I would have those ourselves except that we have no bed posts.)

Charles MacKenzie Fraser lived in Castle Fraser in the 19th century with his wife and 14 children. That's the trouble with the idle rich. You get too much time on your hands and there's going to be trouble.

The most imagination-piquing castle, though, is Dunottar Castle, which is in ruins, but at least it's free of bed-post-bird-plumes. Built in the 15th century, it drew historical celebrities such as William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots. Also, it's said to be the inspiration for Brave, the Disney movie.

Dunnottar Castle sits on a cliff on the ocean--very dramatic. I kept expecting to see Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights race across the castle grounds crying, "Heathcliff! Heathcliff!" Of course, she didn't, because she was only a figment of Emily Bronte's imagination.

A folk music club regularly meets and performs at the Blue Lamp in Aberdeen, so Tom and I listened to folk songs about gallows and lost loves and war. General folk music fare. A woman sitting next to me asked me if

I was from out of town, and I said, "Yes. We're from Detroit." "I guess that is out of town," she said. She plays the accordian and says it's an expressive instrument. She had not heard of Astor Piazola, the game-changing accordianist from Argentina. She might like his music, although it's definitely not folk-ish.

Yesterday, Tom and I stopped to see the Clava Cairns, not far from Culloden. These stone tombs are estimated at 2,000 years old, and they're each surrounded by a ring of stones. Apparently, more than one person got tossed into a single tomb. --

With all the billions of people who've been buried over hundreds of thousands of years, it's probably not a stretch to imagine that we're always walking over the dead. And one day, people--not yet born--will be walking over us. So we probably shouldn't get too impressed with our own importance, even those who live in castles and sire 14 children and allow ridiculous bird plumes to be placed atop bed posts.